The oldest Rowden found living in the 1891 census was Susanna Rowden, 94, of Topsham, Devon

[UK data]

Diana Hope Rowden - WW2 SOE Agent

Diana Hope Rowden was born a month into 1915, barely a few months after the
start of World War One. Born to Aldred Rowden and Christian his wife, she
entered an extended family of Army Officers, Lawyers and Clerics. Her father was
a major in the army, his father a barrister and earlier ancestors had served as chaplains
to the Royal Family.

While Diana was still young, her parents separated and Mrs Rowden decided to
move to the French Riviera to bring up her daughter and two younger sons. Here
they grew up bilingual and enjoyed a easy, relaxed youth. However, concerned for
her children's education, in the late 1920s Christian Rowden and her family
returned to England to live near Mayfield in Hampshire. Diana was subsequently
sent to a boarding school at Limpsfield in Surrey but did not find it easy to
mix with her fellow students.

Her education complete, Diana and her mother moved back to France, where she
started work in free-lance journalism. With the outbreak of war, her mother
again returned to England but Diana sought to serve with the French Red Cross
and was assigned to the Anglo-American Ambulance Corps of the British
Expeditionary Force. In 1941 Diana rejoined her mother and together they took a
flat in Kensington.

France was now under German occupation and with her passion for the country
Diana was keen to help directly in the war effort. In the Autumn of 1941 she
enlisted in the WAAF narrowly missing an opportunity to work in SOE (Special
Operations Executive). However, during a brief hospitalisation in the West
Country Diana met a convalescing pilot who had been working for the French
Section of SOE. Demonstrating to him many of the qualities required of special
agents Diana was later contacted and in early 1943, seconded to SOE.

In June 1943 Squadron Officer Rowden, WAAF returned once more to France, this
time by air as a SOE agent. She was dropped off in a moon-lit field near Angers
and from here she moved to eastern France near its border with Switzerland. Her
papers showed her name as Juliette Therese Rondeau and her field name among
fellow agents was Paulette. Here she worked as SOE agent until 1944 when, with
other female agents, she was detained by the Germans at their concentration camp
at Natzweiler.

A few months later, on a Thursday in July, at the age of 29, she and her
colleagues were subject to a gruesome ordeal, dying a slow and painful death.
Full details have emerged only recently but after the war a plaque was set in
the north wall of St Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London as a commemoration to
their life giving service during World War II.

The children of St Mark's School, Hadlow Down made this fascinting video about Diana Rowden in 2014.

Diana was posthumously awarded the French war decoration, Croix de guerre.